Sunday, June 17, 2007

Dad, you are the best- Happy Fathers' Day

As the world celebrates fathers’ day today, I ponder upon its significance.Not that I deny celebrating this day, but all I am trying to find out is, why just a day’s celebration for such an extraordinary person of our life?

I was listening to my favorite channel on radio-“FM fever-104”, when suddenly they started advertising about “the hero of your life…” making it sound more like a movie.I couldn’t figure out the name of the movie, so kept myself glued to it for chances of missing out on the revelation of the movie’s name.…and to my surprise, they announced it as “…your father! Celebrate Fathers’ day this Sunday”.Now here burgeoned, my inquisitiveness, for knowing the history behind the origin of this day’s celebration. So what do I do next?As I was unable to decide on my next activity, I thought of wishing my dad, and gauge his reaction over it. So I called him up and wished. Surprisingly, dad sounded very happy and spoke to me for some time (longer than his usual talking times…so this made me feel that he was happy :-) ).

Nostalgia runs within mind, when I think of the days when my dad extended his resolute love and support to me. How he used to cheer me up when things didn’t go my way and when I faltered in fulfilling his expectations for me.

No words could ever effuse what a person feels for her dad (n mom as well…but I prefer to stick to “dad” as today is his day). Maybe the girl factor plays a cardinal role in churning such emotions within me.

I have frequently come across a very funny punch line on the t-shirts saying “My dad is an ATM”….Now none of us would disagree to this, but little do we wonder about the epochal role which this ATM plays in shaping up our life.

Before I could digress from the topic completely, I thought of doing some R&D on this day’s celebration. What better mode than Google to look for answers, so I logged into my system and “googled” (yes...this is the term people use in my office for “search”) the net for father’s day. There were plethora of web results that I could look into, so I chose some and read thru to unravel the genesis of fathers’ day story.

Folklore say that, the celebration of fathers’ day was practiced thousands of years ago. It started when a son wished long and healthy life for his father. Thereafter it became a practice for the people in that area to celebrate this day.However the most recent information which I got was that, this tradition began in US in the last century. One Ms Sonora Louise Smart Dodd felt that there was a need to recognize the efforts of a father and hence began a campaign lobbying for the cause.

So, this day is actually her brainchild.

Later, in 1972, President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father's Day to be held on the third Sunday of June.So here we are celebrating this day. Commercialization, of such days is a different story which again can be plowed, in a separate chapter.

Googling so many sites, did give me insight into this beautiful info, which I felt should be made more known to our coevals.I personally feel that such days, help us to voice our love for our near and dear ones, which many of us wouldn’t have ever done. At least on the pretext of celebrating such days, one can remember to express their love and affection and help in resurfacing long buried warmth in the relationships.However, one can never say if certain parties would let this happen amicably, given their past records of demolishing shops on the behest of palisading “Bhartiye Sanskriti”.

Whatever be the future, the present certainly is good.

Sitting at home in the silicon valley of India, miles away from my family, I find such days to be the most effective means of bonding with them.Before my frontal lobe starts taking charge over my parietal lobe, I better indulge myself in some less emotional work:-) .

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.” Fathers Day Quote by: Jim Valvano